And we're back. Be sure to check out last week's article in which we covered TGWtDT's plot.
Now on to the characters. The movie
keeps their personalities more-or-less the same but their
presentations are modified. Many of their detailed backstories –
those of Mikael, Lisbeth, Dragan Armanski (Lisbeth's employer), and
Holger Palmgren (Lisbeth's former legal guardian) – are wholly
jettisoned. Similarly, Cecilia Vanger's role is greatly diminished
and there seems to be less Vanger family members to keep track of.
This comes as no surprise since (1) movies are much shorter than
books, (2) movies are more effective at showing stories rather
than telling them, and (3) Sony Pictures Entertainment
originally intended to adapt the three books into a trilogy of films,
so it's likely that Lisbeth's and Mikael's backstories were being
saved for later.
The film's version of Mikael Blomkvist
seems to be a bit more sensitive and less patient than his book
counterpart. This may be a result of the decision to cast Daniel
Craig in the role. In the film, Blomkvist doesn't appreciate
Lisbeth's unauthorized forays into his personal computer. He also
appears agitated/insulted whenever someone mentions his recent libel
suit, something the book didn't suggest. However I did notice that
the movie left out the details of Mikael's job, his personal
relationships, and the office politics of Millennium Magazine.
It seems that the movie showed us less of Mikael's world in order to
show us more of Lisbeth's world, as if in acknowledgement that she's
the character that more people will find interesting. Fair enough.
Although no mention of her non-hacker
friends is ever made, Lisbeth Salander's role is fleshed out a bit
more and she's made to look like more of a badass. In the film we see
her have a one night stand with a woman named Miriam, return to
torment Bjurman even after her revenge scene, endure getting a
painful tattoo, and beat up the thief who tried to take her laptop (a
scene that pretty much sums up her entire character but wasn't in the
book). Whereas the novel was ambiguous as to whether or not Lisbeth
had it in her to kill Martin, the movie makes the matter very clear.
Just before giving chase, she asks Mikael permission to kill Martin
(in the book she simply said, “I'm going to take him”). And as
she walks towards the car wreck she looks very prepared to do it, but
the explosion is all that stops her from becoming a murderer. It's
possible that Salander's personal insecurities are a bit different
too. In the book she runs off alone when Mikael learns that she has a
photographic memory, leading her to admit that she's a “freak”.
This is sort-of-but-not-really mirrored in the film during her
revenge scene with Bjurman. In this version, Salander believes the
reason that she is so non-sociable is because she is “insane”.
Other characters have minor changes.
For example, the book had a subplot about Cecilia having an affair
with Mikael that didn't end well (as affairs normally do) and for a
while she became a minor suspect. In the film she's merely a cold and
unpleasant woman who has just a couple scenes. One change I do like
is how the movie made Martin into a likeable guy (you know, before we
find out what he's done). Once he reveals his true nature to
Blomkvist he becomes a whole different person, thanks to Stellan
Skarsgard's pitch-perfect, villainous portrayal. He goes through a
whole Bond-villain speech before getting down to business, whereas in
the book Mikael kept the talk going in order to buy time. The book's
narrative didn't cast much regard towards Martin Vanger; he was just
sort of there. In contrast, his film counterpart is much more
compelling.
Let's take a moment to talk about the
setting. While both stories are set in Sweden, the audiences'
perceptions of the themes and connotations are something to take into
consideration since the American movie is (obviously) made primarily
for an American audience. The theme of the abuse of women is still
very much present, recognizable even to viewers who know nothing
about Swedish culture. Conversely the movie seems to place less
emphasis on Swedish Nazism and antisemitism, and more on general
xenophobia (anti-immigration), perhaps because it's a theme more
easily identifiable to a general Western audience. The two main
themes are swiftly introduced during the opening title sequence in
which a woman, Karen O, sings Led Zeppelin's “Immigrant Song”, a
song about Swedish vikings searching for new lands.
It should come as no surprise that the
movie uses English as its spoken language. Unfortunately, this causes
the viewer to miss out on a few plot points from the book. For
example, the book version of Blomkvist is shown to know English and
Lisbeth to know both German and English. In the film, every line of
dialogue is in English, so it's only implied that the two know those
languages. The movie's rules for language are pretty fluid, with
signs and storefronts retaining the use of Swedish while news
headlines, websites, and written reports go back and forth between
English and Swedish.
One curious moment is when Mikael rips
pages out of books to build a fire. One of the books is in English
(“The Year of Magical Thinking”) – again implying that
Blomkvist knows English – and the other is a Swedish translation of
“The Man Without a Country”. Perhaps the latter is a reference to
the fact that Daniel Craig doesn't use a Swedish accent for this
role. Or perhaps Blomkvist himself once emigrated to the UK? Who
knows?
And now for the obligatory random
section where I list all the other notable differences.
- Blomkvist's libel case ends with him being serving three months in jail in the book. In the film he instead loses his life savings.
- In the book, the Blomkvists were previously involved with Vanger Industries and Harriet briefly babysat the young Mikael. The movie rightfully leaves out this plot line as it goes absolutely nowhere.
- The movie makes it clear early on that Lisbeth is a hacker whereas the book saves it as a surprise.
- The film's Palmgren, Salander's former guardian who suffers a stroke, takes the place of her mother, who is absent from the film. In the book, Lisbeth emotionally distances herself from her former guardian to avoid pain while her mother, whom she visits, is stricken with dementia and later dies. In the film, it's implied that her mom is already dead. (See her tattoos.)
- The book explains how Lisbeth left the archives building without the nightwatchman noticing. The movie doesn't.
- In the book Lisbeth has a direct hand in Wennerstrom's murder; she reveals his location to a mafioso. In the movie, he's just found dead with no implied connection to Lisbeth.
Overall, this is a curious case of a
noticeably different adaptation that still manages to tell the
original story effectively. Probably the biggest change overall is in
both making Lisbeth Salander the main character over Mikael Blomkvist
and making the story leaner and easier to digest. I believe that
these changes were made for the better. The film's producers knew
that the relationship between Salander and Blomkvist was what
captured attention and so they constructed their film accordingly.
And since the novel is pretty long, they had to cut out some parts
which isn't that big a deal because the novel feels just a little too
sprawling to work as the “locked room” mystery it was intended
for. In any case,
the film does a great job of reproducing the book's uninviting, cold,
and intense tone. To conclude, I'd say that if you're a
highly detail-oriented person who needs the full picture to
appreciate a good story then you might prefer Stieg Larssen's
original novel. For everyone else, David Fincher's film is the
superior way to experience The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
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